What If They Were Muslim?: Zionists and Islamophobes Try to Quash Academic Freedom

A planned Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) forum at Brooklyn College on February, 7th has brought together an angry assortment of Zionists and Islamophobes, including influential New York lawmakers who are threatening to slash the funding of Brooklyn College for hosting and co-sponsoring the event–describing it as “anti-Semitic.”

Plainly, this entire controversy has only one “principle” and one purpose: to threaten, intimidate and bully professors, school administrators and academic institutions out of any involvement in criticisms of Israel.

Democracy Now which invited opponents to the BDS event, including the NY lawmakers (they all rejected the invitation) had a revealing report on the controversy, including interviews with one of tomorrow’s speakers, Omar Barghouti, as well as Glenn Greenwald:

In a break with the past, when such pressure would likely have led to the administration of such a college caving-in to the demands of Dershowitz and his allies, Brooklyn College has stood its ground,

The college administration has so far stood their ground. Brooklyn College spokespeople have said that the Political Science Department’s sponsorship of the event does not mean that it is endorsing the event, and that the college administrationis “not going to tell members of our faculty what they can and cannot choose to support.”

“If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea,” he said in a news conference at City Hall.

This may be a turning point in the public debate over the limits of criticizing Zionism and the state of Israel. In the past reflexive accusations of “anti-Semitism” drowned nuanced discussion on Zionism, Israel and Palestinian rights, now we are witnessing a hopeful sign of more balanced public discussion.

This also bodes well for those who are truly concerned about fighting anti-Semitism since it rescues it from the clutches of those who trivialize real anti-Semitism by conflating it with criticism of Zionism and Israel.

One can only imagine the Islamophobic repercussions that would have ensued if a lobby of Muslim organizations and lawmakers attempted a parallel attack on academic freedom. Hackles ofIslamization and Islamic incompatibility with freedom would be endless.

Hikind gained his earliest experience in the early 1970s in local New York politics as an acolyte of Meir Kahane, the fanatical rabbi-turned-Israeli Member of Knesset who called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and establishment of a theocratic state of “Judea” in the West Bank. “I’m proud of every single moment, let me make that very clear. Rabbi Kahane had a great influence on me,” Hikind declared in 2008. Under Kahane’s guidance, Hikind became active in the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a nationwide extremist network that attacked Arab-American and Soviet targets while rallying vigilante squads to “protect” working-class Jews living in African-American and Puerto Rican neighborhoods.